


Once Upon a Dark and Stormy Night

by jaythenerdkid



Category: Hot Fuzz (2007)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-23
Updated: 2008-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-25 02:12:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1626089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaythenerdkid/pseuds/jaythenerdkid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One dark and stormy Hallowe'en night, the officers of the Sandford Police Service decide to tell each other ghost stories, with...interesting results.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Once Upon a Dark and Stormy Night

**Author's Note:**

> This was a really fun prompt to write to, but I'm not sure I've written quite what the recipient had in mind! I hope it's an enjoyable read nonetheless.
> 
> Written for Tish

 

 

On Nicholas' first Hallowe'en in Sandford, he and the rest of the service clock off at five and decide to head down to the pub for drinks.

As the new boy, Nicholas gets the dubious honour of buying the first round. And the second. And the third. (He says a silent prayer of thanks to a deity he's not even sure exists that the money for all of this is coming out of the swear jar.) It's all becomes worth it, however, around about the time of the fifth round, when Doris suggests, her speech slightly slurred and her movements just a little bit shaky, that they tell each other spooky stories.

"Oooh, I've got one!" Danny pipes up excitedly. "It was a dark and stormy night, yeah, and there was this guy, right, and he murdered the other guy in the house and stashed the body away..."

"That's _The Telltale Heart_ , Danny," Nicholas interjects.

"Still a good story," Danny replies a little sulkily.

"There's one I heard," Tony starts, "ages ago, I was just a boy at the time, about a girl who has to go and visit her grandmother, who lives deep in the forest..."

"We never told you this, Tony, but that's actually _Little Red Riding Hood_ ," Doris says.

"I knew that!" Tony protests.

There is a moment of awkward silence.

The Andys are exchanging speculative glances from behind the aviator sunglasses they refuse to take off even in a dimly lit pub at eleven at night. Doris looks from one to the other with an expression of growing alarm on her face.

"Oh, no," she says, all traces of slurring miraculously vanishing from her speech. "You wouldn't. Oh, boys, you _wouldn't_..."

Andy grins evilly beneath his foam-flecked moustache and glances at his junior counterpart, who grins back.

"Don't insult us, Doris!" he says, leering slightly drunkenly.

"Of course we would," the other Andy adds.

Doris' eyes narrow dangerously, but this just makes the Andys laugh. "Oh, come on, don't be a spoilsport, Doris!" one of them teases.

"Yeah, you were the one that suggested we tell _spooky stories_ ," the other chimes in, wiggling his fingers and deepening his voice, his eyes rolling comically behind his glasses.

"What sort of story are we talking about, anyway?" Nicholas asks.

"Oh, it's a story of violence and madness," the elder Andy says, his voice dropping to a hoarse, dramatic whisper. "A story of unspeakable horrors - "

"And some speakable ones - " the other Andy adds.

"A story..." Andy pauses dramatically, looking around at them all. "Of blood."

Doris groans and buries her head in her arms, which are resting on the table.

"It all starts," says the younger Andy, "on a dark, stormy night, rather like this one..."

"A certain PC Thatcher was out in the woods near the old castle, looking for Mr Staker's goat, which had escaped," the older Andy says, picking up the story. "It was cold and very dark, and it had started to rain. As the only officer on duty that night, she had gone out all alone. After all, she reasoned, who would need back-up for a job like this?"

"She drove out in that little Mini she's so fond of until she reached the woods. Ain't no way for cars to get through there, so she had to get out. Here she is, in her hat and her shiny yellow raincoat and her muddy gumboots, nothing on her but a truncheon and a little flashlight. But she figures this'll just be a quick job, so she jumps out of the car, shuts the door behind her..."

"And realises she's locked in her keys," the younger Andy finishes. "And her mobile, so she can't even call the station for her spare set. But our Doris, she's a plucky lass, so she figures she'll just go on, find the goat and then walk home after, and get the car the next morning. So she sets off, waving that flashlight out in front of her, trying not to lose her footing because the ground's been made slippery in all the rain."

"She goes on and on, and the rain only gets heavier. But our PC Thatcher, she's a dedicated copper, so she goes on, deeper and deeper and deeper into the forest, until she's not even sure she's following the path any more. And it's about this time that the wind picks up and she can hear noises that are _maybe_ just the wind rustling the leaves of the trees but are _maybe_ something else. But Doris, she's brave, and she tells herself she's not scared of no noises, and she keeps going and tries to forget all the stories she's heard about these woods."

"What sort of stories?" Nicholas interjects.

"Oh, terrible things," the older Andy says with relish. "People going missing, people who go in and never come out, and all people know is that they've heard screams coming from the forest, late at night. Nobody knows what's in there, what takes those people or what happens to them - just that they never come out."

"So anyway," the younger Andy says, picking the story up again, "Here's Doris, all brave in her raincoat with her flashlight, making sure she's not thinking about all those stories...and suddenly, the light flickers a bit, and it goes out, and everything is black. And she can hear so many little noises about the place, all that rustling and groaning and creaking that might just be trees but probably isn't, and she starts to think about what would happen if _she_ were never to come back..."

"Please, boys, will you just stop it?" Doris pleads, but Andy just laughs and continues the tale.

"Oh, it's raining so heavily that the ground is all just mud, and the water's trickling down the back of her shiny yellow raincoat and she realises that she's an easy target for creatures that can see in the dark. And she's just considering taking it off to make herself harder to see when she hears the most _terrible_ noise, like bones being crunched in giant monster teeth, and so she screams and screams and screams so loud that she almost doesn't hear the soft clopping sound as whatever it is comes closer and closer..."

"And now, she's so scared she can't even scream," the younger Andy continues, his eyes gleaming as he brings the tale to its climax. "She's gone all deathly quiet, not even breathing if she can help it, and all the while, the thing's getting closer and closer, and she can hear that crunching, still, such a terrible noise and oh, she's sure she's going to be next, and then the thing is right next to her and she opens her mouth to scream again but before she can, it's butted up against her waist and she hears..."

"Hears what?" asks Danny, staring intently at the Andys over the rim of his mug.

"Bleating," Doris says dully.

"Bleating?" Tony repeats.

"Oh, yes," the elder Andy says, grinning hugely. "For the terrible monster that Doris had been sure was going to eat her alive was none other than Mr Staker's missing goat, who'd gotten hold of a small branch and was doing as all goats do and trying to see if he could eat it. She's that relieved, is Doris, so she goes to hug the thing and gets a bellyful of angry goat for her trouble, but she doesn't care, she's just glad she isn't going to be eaten."

"Though the goat is hungry," the younger Andy says," so when we next see Doris, after she's lugged the goat back to her car and then walked back to the village, she's missing her raincoat."

"And that's the story?" Nicholas asks.

"Well, not quite," the elder Andy says, quite obviously suppressing laughter (the other Andy has already given in and is pounding on the table as he guffaws). "Mr Staker was that pleased to have his goat back, the very next day he brought up a lovely black forest cake to the station. Of course, Doris had caught a chill from being out in the rain all night, so she couldn't really enjoy it much, but as her friends, we were quite happy to help her finish it."

"I hate you boys, you know that?" Doris asks with a moan as she takes a swig of her beer, but the boys are too busy laughing to respond.

Once they eventually calm down, Nicholas turns to Doris and asks, "What about you? Have you got any stories you want to share?"

Doris looks up from her drink with a thoughtful expression on her face. She looks from one Andy to the other, the beginnings of an evil smile on her face. "Actually," she says slowly, "I might at that. It's not _spooky_ , as such, though it's certainly an interesting little tale..."

The elder Andy's face goes white. "Oh, Doris, my girl, surely you wouldn't?" he asks.

Doris laughs and tips him a mischievous wink. "Oh, Andy, why would you insult me?" she responds. "Of course I would."

So she turns to Nicholas and says, "I don't suppose anyone's told you about the time that old Miss Evans' dog went missing..."

As Nicholas orders another round for everyone, he reflects that this is possibly his favourite Hallowe'en ever. 

 


End file.
